


Two Young Idiots

by MagpieChristine



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Gen, It's the same universe but different characters, MOBY Spoilers, it's the opposite of an AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 01:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15377334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieChristine/pseuds/MagpieChristine
Summary: In which the Guide reappears, and we discover the fate of Lallybroch





	Two Young Idiots

“Ok, final checklist review, then you’re good to go.”

Mary looked at her cousin Julia and nodded. Mary was dressed in a (slightly modified) Simplicity 18-century costume, which would hopefully be good enough to get by. She had a crude pocket in her hand, ready to be filled.

“First off, your own personal supplies: A true gem;”

Mary tapped the ugly thrift store diamond-studded broach she had pinned to her bodice.

“Check.”

“Food, water purification tablets and a drinking cup;”

Mary stuck granola bars, two bottles of Aquatabs and a tin camping cup into the pocket.

“Check, check and check. I’m still not sure that a filter wouldn’t have been a better idea.”

“You’ve changed your mind three times already. If you want to go, I think you’re running out of time. Last time you changed your mind, you pointed out that the filter would be a lot harder to carry, and a lot harder to use without notice. Besides, you’re going want to stick to tea whenever you can. Moving on.

“Matches, lighter, fire starting kit;”

Mary grabbed the bundle of waterproofed Redbird matches, the cigarette lighter and the Altoids tin with fire cubes, sticking them into the pocket. They were joined by a bush knife (with sheath), a small first aid kit, a comb and some handkerchiefs. She lifted her outer skirt to tie the pocket over her (thankfully) single petticoat. She dropped her skirt back down, and fiddled with the pocket to make sure she could reach it through the opening they'd left in the side seam, then grabbed a canvas bag from in front of her and waited for Julia to flip to the next page.

“Valuables: Heavy gold chain;”

Mary grabbed the chain, one of the products of many hours of trawling through pawn shops, and stuck it into the bottom of the sack.

“I’ve also tacked a couple of plain rings and bangles to the inside of my bodice, just in case. The empty findings from the gems are in the hem of the petticoat.”

Julia nodded acknowledgement and kept moving down the list.

“Loose tea, peppercorns and nutmeg;”

Mary grabbed the three aromatic muslin bags and added them to the sack. They may or may not be worth selling for travelling money, and to cover the cost of living until the next feast day after she got a gem and could hopefully return, but they should at a minimum serve to make her more welcome if she gave them as gifts.

“Booklet of pins;”

As she put the flannel book into the bag she pointed out “Of course, we still don’t know if these had anywhere near the same value here that they’d have had back home.”

“That’s true, but if they were anywhere near as expensive here as they were there, you really want to make sure you have your own supply. Do you have the seeds?”

Mary stuck little bags of Red Fife and poppy seeds into the sack.

“Then we’re on to the final list! The experimental equipment. Starting with samples, from most to least likely to work. Semi-precious gems;”

Mary grabbed the sample cards. Each was a sheet of light cardstock, with a small stone securely taped on, carefully labeled in Sharpie as to what it was. She sorted through them and withdrew two.

“I have one that’s mostly quartz – white quartz, rose quarts, amethyst and citrine with tourmaline to round it out, and one with garnet, chalcedony, chrysoberyl, tanzanite and periodot.”

Julia took a look at the two cards. She tapped at the one labeled citrine.

“Isn’t that topaz?” Mary took another look herself.

“I can’t tell. But we got it from that birthstone pendant; it was labelled for November.”

“That’s why I said topaz.” Mary thought back to the gem book she’d loved to pieces as a child.

“I think that November might have both. We’ll add to the label, and if it exhibits anomalous behaviour we’ll take that under consideration.”

Julia wondered (but didn’t bother asking) what would count as anomalous. She continued on the sample checklist.

“Synthetics;” This time, Mary’s sheet held only three gems.

“Moissanite, and one each of lab-created ruby and emerald.”

“Industrial grade;” Instead of gems, the sheet held two dime bags with small pinches of powder, even more carefully taped.

“Diamond and carborundum, aka ruby or sapphire. I wanted to get some powdered aluminum, but the labs I could think of that would have it had good controls on their materials. Not even any waste I could just pick up with tape. Health & Safety must have just cracked down again.”

Julia gave her cousin a sideways look. “You mean to tell me it was easier to steal diamonds than aluminum? I always knew engineers were crazy, but you’d think that the university officials would impose better sense.”

Ignoring the familiar insult, Mary laughed. “Industrial grade diamond is cheap. Aluminum power, on the other hand, is a fire hazard. It wasn’t really an important part of the test though. The only reason I thought of it was because sapphires and rubies are an aluminum oxide. But it’s not really a gem, and even if something did happen to the oxide, I don’t know if we’d be able to tell, especially without a lab scale at the other end to measure any mass loss. Besides, it’s harder to get than the abrasive grits, so why would anyone care?”

This raised the question of why the girls were bothering with the experiment in the first place. The old handwritten document that had been found in the attic of the old family homestead when their great-grandmother died 15 years ago was very clear that the time travel it described was dangerous, so it’s not as if this would be information with daily use. When Mary and Julia first discussed the experiment, it was just to see if travelling through the stones was possible at all, none of this gemstone testing. 200-year-old fantasy stories are easier to believe, however, when they come with a letter that somehow resulted in the family being given title to an old Scottish farmhouse by an elderly doctor in Boston. As the girls discussed, they realised that the deed to Lallybroch that Dr. Abernathy had given the family had moved both of them towards believing that it was possible to travel through the stones. Since there was apparently some risk associated with the travel, especially repeated trips, it seemed imprudent to start with a proof of concept trip first, so they decided to skip right to testing what counted as a gem.

Of course they weren’t entirely sure how to test that. Sure, the Guide said that they were consumed, but that was rather vague. And did it mean that anything was “consumed” counted as a gem? And was there actually value to the answer? After all, if this was indeed dangerous, it wasn’t as if there was a lot of need to know more about how to travel. But the girls had figured that they wouldn’t be the only people who decided that they couldn’t entirely pass up the chance to check out the past in person (or at least vicariously through their cousin), and that they might as well make their test trip useful.

Julia checked the list again. “Organics;”

Mary flourished another sheet. “Amber, opal, pearl.”

“Last one. You’ve written ‘NBL’, which I believe is ‘not bloody likely’.”

“Correct. These aren’t gems, were never considered gems, and aren’t chemically identical to gems. But they’re still jewellery and/or sparkly, so it’s worth trying them. Hematite, obsidian, turquoise and mica.”

“And you have the engraved plaques?” Mary flourished the two pieces of steel, to be used as proof that she had made the trip at least one way.

“One for here, one for under the front step. Check them off!”

Julia rolled her eyes at Mary’s overly methodical pickiness, but made the mark on the list. Co-operating with the formal method that was being requested, she read the last entry precisely.

“Notebook with reporting instructions, and pen to record further observations.”

“Check and check. I’m ready. Of course, it’s a shame we can’t send guinea pigs or something through. It would give much better data, because we could get info on what gives the best survival rates.”

Julia looked at her cousin. Not that they hadn’t had this discussion before, but this time she let the sarcasm out. “And we’d do what, kidnap a neighbour boy and girl to send after them and check which pigs survived?”

“What? No. I’d still be going through myself, with something we know works. But it would give more data.”

Julia shook her head at this confirmation that her cousin hadn’t re-read Narnia any time recently, but let the subject drop.

“Do you have the letter for my parents?” asked Mary.

“I do, right here. Your mom is going to kill me, letter or no.”

“Of course she is. If you’d won the coin flip, your mother would do the same to me.” She took a deep breath. “You should probably stay down here, the Guide wasn’t too clear about what a safe distance was, better safe than sorry.”

Mary gave Julia a hug, then slung her pack over her shoulder, and picked up the sample cards. She walked up Craig na Dun to the brazier they had laid a fire in earlier. She dug in her pocket for the lighter, and lit the paper at the bottom of the pile. Once she had the fire going strongly, she put the lighter back and took out the bush knife. She reached into the box for the little feeder mouse they had got at the pet store, and looked at it guiltily. In the end, she bashed its head with the butt of the handle before slitting its throat and then throwing the whole mess on the fire. Gemstone, fire and blood accomplished, she took a firm grip on her samples, walked up, stepped through the split in the tallest rock, and vanished.

* * *

Once she had recovered from the sensation of Mary’s departure, Julia stood up and cautiously climbed the hill to see what had happened. “Well fuck me. It worked.”


End file.
